High level Afghan intelligence officials visits Pakistan

A high-level Afghan intelligence delegation is in Pakistan for talks on anti-terror cooperation between the two uneasy neighbours, The Express Tribune reported.

Deputy Director of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security or NDS, General Hesamuddin, is leading the five-member delegation in talks with Pakistani intelligence officials on a host of issues, the source told The Express Tribune.

An Afghan diplomatic source said, During the two-day talks, the officials will focus on cooperation between the intelligence agencies of the two countries. “The two sides also discussed their cooperation in the Afghan reconciliation process.”

Sources also said that both sides reviewed investigation into last month’s suicide attack on Afghan intelligence chief Asadullah Khalid in Kabul, who was critically injured.

A day after the attack, President Hamid Karzai had claimed that the bomber had come from the Pakistani city of Quetta.

Karzai had demanded an investigation into the attack on Khalid, a close confidante who is now being treated in an American hospital.

The visit comes just days after Islamabad confirmed it has freed 26 Afghan Taliban prisoners, including the Taliban former justice minister, Mulla Nooruddin Turabi and several former governors.

According to The Express Tribune the issue of Taliban prisoners also came under discussion as Afghan authorities consider the issue of Taliban prisoners ‘incomplete’.
The Afghan intelligence authorities during their visit will urge Pakistani officials to provide details of the freed Afghan Taliban including where have they gone, why and when they had been arrested and on what charges.

In the meantime reports suggest that the US authorities have also asked Pakistan to provide it with information on some of the freed Taliban leaders and several others expected to be freed in the coming days.